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Magic Lantern Review

Issue 5
Poetry Strawberries........1 Catherine E. Bailey Mad Dogs Act of Extended Departure......3 Jim Davis Vicious........5 Jim Davis Queen Marie.......7 Carly Steele Close Encounter.....9 Paul Bernstein Seventh Summer.......10 Brendan Sullivan Film Noire....12 Brendan Sullivan Film Analysis Red Cliff 2 (2009), Film Review......14 Winnie Khaw Infernal Affairs (2002), Film Review....18 Winnie Khaw

Strawberries
Catherine Bailey
The night I tried to take your virginity in Tokyo I fed you cold strawberries with the anchor of my hand. The room was masqueraded in red curtains and wet windows and the candles sighed their melting into clean elastic jars. I wanted to open you less like a present and more like a grave robber pilfering bones. I wanted to tell you your cuticle moonrises made me long to color every inch of you with soot. The opal of your face was divided into countries, one caught in the glib light, the other down a well. When you turned away 1

I asked the berries how they could betray me. Their taut seeded frowns and the candles yellow cackling reminded me gently that you were a ghost.

Mad Dogs Act of Extended Departure

Jim Davis
Farewell to nighttime, Sinatra, and blueberry wine. Lets give your neighbors something to talk about. I understand the need for a hot meal, but nothing tastes good with a burnt tongue. Can you taste the allegory? How do you find yourself in the back of a cab at 3am with an elf on your lap kissing your mouth and ear, tasting alternately of brandy, nutmeg and sour nog? Aside from the Santas Little Helper cap, could you pick her from a crowd? Probably not. Nearly dawn and I go out to the porch for a Lucky Strike. I dont smoke but I wish I did at least then Id have an excuse for standing on the porch listening to motors, calculating the weight of the good deeds it will take to outweigh the night prior. The priory of sion was that a real thing? It wasnt but it seemed that way. Sangreal: Seemed real. And a radish carved to look like a rose turning out looks instead like a fist turning in, choking itself. Farewell to the New Year, its nearly time. Ive resigned to never be famous, eternal relevance will do. 11:00am on a Tuesday and you wish you were a church goer cause today you do and you put whats been broken by cab fare in the basket 3

and who the hell do you think youre talking to? Was it you who was speaking of sovereignty? If so, have you found what youre after? Can you call her by name? Can you break her into pieces on the altar? Farewell to the good old days of nothing but future. Farewell to mad dogs moaning, small squirrels lost in streets paved with smashed-squirrels. Another thing: Find yourself a Chicken Shawerma, shower, then go behind the dumpster and puke. Thats it. Youve done it again. Call it a night, she said but you wouldnt listen. Step out on the porch for a smoke Ahem. City, unzip your dress, Ive been waiting for you.

Vicious
Jim Davis
Steve ascends the steps with strangers, descends lively. We have known each other for years, since halftime of the Mundelein game, when he struck me on the back for encouragement. Okay, I said. I was not one for words. But years have changed the both of us. He, in the loft bathroom with all its lavish fixtures, sniffing new zest. And, I, drinking beers in the basement with old friends who are more or less the same. We stuff cans between leather couch cushions. The crowd tonight is buzzing with designer women and men in expensive suit coats. We button buttons we would not usually button. We tuck in our shirts. Ive been talking to a woman with vicious written in false graffiti across her blouse. An electronic remix of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young is thumping through the speakers. What? we keep saying. What? She sips from a cup and nods. 5

I can see shes on to me. I wore my best shirt, but she knows. She can smell the earth, she can smell the sweat. She can smell the rain cascading on a field, the cows lying on their sides, the poignant country tang of swill spilling through the window. She can hear the train that once stirred my sleep, triggering my quiet. Before she can leave I grab her arm and whisper, Please, let me hold your hand for a moment. Let me play you a symphony in the key of thirst, of innocence, of incompletion. Let our song wet the sordid earth. She smokes a cigarette in the dark. She imagines how I might fit her plans as I climb over the balcony rail. I escape through the garden, where above the wires cut Chicagos radiant skyline. No stars. The hedge moves. Steve groans from his belly, calls my name as if we had not seen each other in a lifetime; as if, somehow, tonight we were entirely different people.

Queen Marie
Carly Steele
I was a wisp of a duchess in the looking glass With macaroon lips and white hair once gold. I was pricked and pinned, and powdered Like a puppet doll of lace and grey silk, To be puffed up with fragile feathers, Praised as pink and lovely, a perfect piece of cake. The dauphin kissed my painted cheek and wedding cake Entered our virgin lips. We toasted crystal glasses Of champagne and crept into the bridal feathered Bed, while royalty crowded at the frame of gilded gold. Our innocent bodies were cradled in sheets of silk, My body, a creation of cream, crinoline, and powder. Versailles wrapped in winters white powder With parties abandoned and crumbs of cake. The frigid Austrian whispered like silk Through the palace walls, shaking the chandeliers glass. An empty bassinet mocked me with its gleaming gold; I hid my woes in my hair with feathers. Of peacock and down, my interest was only of feathers, Rouge, and roulette; only of parties with powder Of opium flowers. While I gambled my gold With my ladies and lovers, I ate tarts and cakes 7

Daily, to please my lips, and sipped a constant glass Of wine, to help me find happiness in my silks. Uncontrolled conception released with blood onto silk. I heard the cries of le dauphine, with her peach fuzz feathered. Shocking sunlight gleams through the Venetian glass Onto my unkempt body, my skin ruddy without powder. Then I, the Queen, gleamed again, with corsets and colors caked Upon my frame, touched by Midas, turned to gold. Now, I am the queen of deficit, surrendering my gold, My Olympic home, slips away like the silk Of the liberty flag, which spreads lies of cake And of sin. My cell is hay and stone. Feathers And curtains lie tattered and maimed by gun powder. Versailles, destroyed, the hall of mirrors now broken glass. The French throw coins of gold to mock my feathers, Torn silk, and my tired face with its false powder Let her eat cake, they cry, as I split like glass.

Close Encounter
Paul Bernstein
(In Steven Spielbergs Close Encounters of the Third Kind, three characters elude the authorities and reach the Devil's Tower. Two of them, the hero and heroine, reach the top. The third, Larry Butler, never made it. This is his story) I never thought the slow remorseless turning of the stars could wind a mired soul up root by root. Then ships came singing out of space, me trying to catch up, a hunger for heights erupting sharp and bright as a new tooth in my minds mouth. I was invited, damn it, me, invited all the way to heaven. Then choppers came, and gas; I fell, oh how we fell, the unsuspecting hapless birds and I out of grace into this single sinful old unwelcome world.

Seventh Summer
Brendan Sullivan
The boy remembered his seventh summer how pelicans haunted the bay, swooping down to snatch tiny minnows and ghost crabs hidden in the waves. His grandmother died in June old lady smell and tuberoses filling the parlor where guests offered prayers crushed tight like robins. It rained all day God's judgment his mother said, her tearless face terrifying beneath the long black veil as her hands pushed away the coffin. In July he went fishing, the reek of blood worms churning his stomach while the boat rocked and the sun ate up the sky; the thick black of beetles chewing through his jeans 10

as he pretended to fly in a plane with no wings. His father came home late August shiny new medals bursting holes in his chest, the shrapnel in his head lending him a stranger's voice, and promised this time would be different But his mother stopped dancing in the garden and took to her bed again claiming God was now the enemy and his father talked only to the whiskey bottles hidden in the basement where the maw of early autumn settled in like men of straw.

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Film Noire
Brendan Sullivan
In my dreams she is a spy, long and cool, like a sleek pulp novel Mata Hari or someone Bette Davis played in an old black and white movie, and she's dressed in impossibly tight taffeta grey and smoky under starlight swinging hips that could shake down the world. I see her sitting on a bar stool, sipping a sloe gin fizz waiting for a man in a fedora to enter and make his mark on the world and her heart. He will approach her slowly from behind and order what she is drinking and let his fingers 12

tapping the glass be small talk as he takes a seat. She will pump him for his secrets blue prints of souls and lists of lost worlds while she smokes a Sobraine in a slender ivory holder. And he will break her code down slowly through the long night under a ceiling fan that makes the warm air dangerous, with deadly calm and the kind of force that makes her forget to dream.

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Red Cliff 2 (2009), Film Review

Winnie Khaw
Directed by John Woo and unprecedented as the most expensive Asian-financed movie, Red Cliff 2 (2009) is the second part of a visually stunning historical epic, adapted from a famous battle in the Chinese historical document Records of Three Kingdoms. Woo takes a relatively neutral stand between what would be have Zhang Yimous opulent direction (as in Hero and Curse of the Golden Flower) and the grittiness common to most war films, opting instead for obvious attention to detail and sweeping long shots of armies and navies. Featuring strong performances from Tony Leung as Zhou Yu, Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhuge Liang, Zhang Fengyi as Cao Cao, and an ethereal presence from Lin Chi-ling as Xiao Qiao, Red Cliff portrays a romanticized perspective on the military strategies in and trials of war and the stalwart warriors fighting in it. After infiltrating the enemy camp, Sun Shangxiang (Wei Zhou) sends secret reports by pigeon to Zhuge Liang. A growing number of Cao Caos soldiers have succumbed to a typhoid epidemic, and the Prime Minister turns this tragedy into a war tactic, sending the dead bodies to the opposing army to infect it; the ploy is successful, and disheartened, Liu Bei (You Yong) apparently pulls his troops out of the alliance. Zhou Yu and Zhu Liang challenge each other in a friendly but serious fashion, the former to cause the death of Cao Caos two admirals, and the latter to obtain 100,000 arrows in three daysthe loser must forfeit his head. Fortunately for their side, they both accomplish their goals. 14

Knowing that Cao Cao has designs upon her, Xiao Qiao makes an inscrutable decision to help her husband by trying to persuade Cao Cao to surrender his grandiose plans of attack. Ultimately, at least for the Battle of Red Cliff, the Southlanders gain the victory, with heavy allusions to the cost in lives. The conventions of heroic bloodshed are followed: for example, an enemy soldier becomes humanized as a simple-minded, bighearted Cuju player dies as a casualty of the climactic battle. As is the case in many panoramic historical epics, personal traits are overlooked; characters are simplified and even one-dimensional, though perhaps some are given more sympathetic and understandable flaws than is usual. The literarily and historically much-vilified Cao Cao is shown as a highly clever, manipulative general with overweening ambitions and hubris, but not necessarily evil. Zhu Liang, played by the extraordinarily handsome Kaneshiro with an enigmatic smile throughout, is a strategic genius with no blemish; he can correctly predict the moves of the enemy. Leung as the honorable and intelligent Zhou Yu appears strangely weary without cause (during filming there were rumors that the actor suffered from work-related burnout after his last movie), and while maintaining an appropriate screen charisma, does not transcend the role. Even at the beginning of Red Cliff, the audience is given to understand that the nature of friendship forged by mutual respect in those troubled times is precariously fragile; allies today may become foes tomorrow. Allegiances of the past do not determine those of the future, and loyal servants of rival leaders could find each other at sword-point. The tensions between the officers of the allied armies is well-depicted and comprehensible, such as the scene in which Liu Bei withdraws his troops and the remaining 15

officers accuse him of selfishness, leading his blood brother to splutter angrily against the slur. In addition, audiences of all cultures can appreciate the fight of the underdog against the juggernaut, the seeming David against the Goliath; the eventual triumph does not greatly diminish the engrossing tension of how such a victory will come to pass. Nevertheless, too frequently the so-called ingenious plans appear thinly-wrought and based on chanceZhu Liang could not possibly know that he wouldnt be shot through with arrows in the straw-covered boat. Xiao Qiao going to Cao Cao to plead with him seems like a foolish plan from any angle. Cao Caos ploy of sending the dead bodies to his enemys camp in order to spread the disease is too obvious, and yet soldiers and peasants alike fall victim to it. Choreography director Corey Yun orchestrates the action with magnificent skill which, along with Woos directing, gives the audience an awed sense of the grandeur of the Red Cliff cinematic production. As well, in the areas of cinematography, art direction, production and costume design, visual effects, et cetera, the touches of careful supervision are majestic. However, the ripping cloth CG transitions make for an oddly cheap feel, and the at times overly light-hearted musical score detracts from the intended effect. While the abrupt camera cuts to demonstrate the differences between armies and leaders are recognized, the changeovers can be dizzying rather than efficient. The creativity of showing in aerial view the enormity of scope of the film by having the white messenger dove fly from one camp to another is laudable. Typical Woo themes of melodramatic brotherhood abound between Zhou Yu and Zhu Liangone thinks the usual guns are replaced with swords and arrowsinterspersed by quiet, zen-like moments, such as the delicate scenes between Zhou Yu and his wife Xiao Qiao. 16

The international release cut out a large portion of the entire fivehour run, thereby abbreviating a great deal of the detailed story and dense interweaving plot threads. Sharp and vivid, painted in rich color, the scenic beauty of armor and weapons, costumes and battles, add to the splendor of the spectacle. Overall, the wellexecuted separate movements, sharply contrasting moments of the heros tactics against the adversarys, and distinguishing standout parts contribute to a handsome, pleasing cinematic experience in Red Cliff 2.

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Infernal Affairs (2002), Film Review

Winnie Khaw
Infernal Affairs (2002), directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, is a gritty Hong Kong crime thriller starring Tony Leung as undercover agent Chan Wing-Yan who infiltrates the Triads and remains in that shadowy status for ten years, and Andy Lau as police officer and secret Triad member Lau Kin-Ming. Heralded as a revival of Hong Kong cinema and a box office miracle, the film boasts a star-studded cast and received critical acclaim for its cinematic merit. Infernal Affairs was followed by a prequel and a sequel due to commercial success, and inspired a Hollywood remake, The Departed (2006), directed by Martin Scorsese, which won four Oscars. Though the negative mirror-image of the criminal/cop has been done in the past, this character-focused film on the psychology and morality of a double life, manages to execute such a scenario in a gripping and entertaining fashion. The American DVD cover, courtesy of Buena Vista, is a travesty of artistic justice: an admittedly beautiful young woman (who does not appear in the movie) in a tight jumpsuit poses with a gun between the profiles of Leung and Lau. The implications confused me into thinking that Infernal Affairs would be about a romantic love triangle, complete with mafia action and blazing guns. As well, the Chinese title Mou Gaan Dou, meaning the non-stop path in reference to Avici, the lowest level of hell in Buddhism, has much more interesting connotations than the English wordplay on Internal Affairs. 18

Infernal Affairs begins by paralleling the introductions of two young men, Yan (Shawn Yue) who enters the police academy only to apparently be expelled, and Ming (Edison Chen) who starts as a gang member and acts as a mole in the police force for drug lord Hon Sam (Eric Tsang). The stern Superintendent Wong Chi-Shing (Anthony Wong) becomes a mentor to a young Yan. Ten years pass, and as the enmity between and Wong and Sam deepens, a cat and mouse game to discover the mole within the respective gang and police department begins. Ming wants to leave his role as a mole for the Triads and to truly become a righteous cop, while Yan for years has wanted to recover his identity as a civilian and police officer. Their desires come to irreparable cross-purposes, however, when Wong is killed by Sams men. Quick, abrupt shots emphasize the passing of time and the differences between the two men. Tilted camera angles convey a sense of unbalance and uncertainty, while a darkly tinted color palette throughout evokes a feeling of hopelessness and doom. Unfortunately, an at times melodramatic score at death scenes/flashbacks/montages somewhat diminishes the very emotion the movie wishes the audience to have. The scenes of Wongs police department mole Yan against Sams Triad gang mole Ming possess an electric, even explosive mood, and the air is almost visibly thick with tension. The fact that the audience knows from the very beginning who the moles are does not detract from Infernal Affairs, as this tense, fast-paced film does not aim to be a mystery; rather, the race to find each other before being found drives most of the story, and the clear victory of the amoral Ming by virtue of his survival concludes it.

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One cannot keep an objective distance from the forlorn, desperately unhappy Yan who can find the solace of sleep only in a psychiatrists office; a fine actor (recently Chow Mo-Wan in the 2000 film In the Mood for Love directed by Kar-Wai Wong), Leung turns in a particularly layered, sympathetic performance as Yan. Lau gives a well-polished and tuned presentation, but his character lacks the same complexity as that of Yan, though they both live lives in shades of dubious, varying gray. One is ostensibly the good guy and the other the bad guy; neither likes what he has become. The line of dichotomy between virtue and evil becomes blurred and unsure. Anthony Wong, with his long and illustrious acting career, creates a magnificently stoic Superintendent persona unwavering in integrity. Connections between characters, although pared to the minimum, nevertheless manage to express the essential kinship between them, whatever the degree. The mentor-protg relationship of Superintendent Wong and Yan is a complicated one, mixed with genuine affection and worry even when fraught with accusations and anger. As an intelligent character study and psychological drama infused with elements of action, Infernal Affairs does very well. Nevertheless, the extraneous romantic interest roles of Mings girlfriend and perhaps Yans psychiatrist seem to occupy unnecessary space in the limited time allotted an otherwise solid and engrossing film. Still, one can argue that the psychiatrist (Kelly Chen) is a refuge for Yan, and that the literary endeavors of Mings writer girlfriend (Sammi Cheng) reflect the moral ambiguity of Ming himself. Moral dilemmas and mixed allegiances make for the contextual excellence of this film, not the common, even somewhat unoriginal plot, which borrows liberally from preceding cinematic 20

productions such as Hong Kong director John Woos The Killer (1989) and the American movie Heat (1995). High production values, suspenseful direction, adaptive cinematography, and charismatic performances allow for its blockbuster success. Advancing technology plays an integral part: cell phones and a tape recording can be as lethal as guns firing. Thankfully, over-the-top action is eschewed in favor of a more subdued tone rich in drama. The later prequel apparently suffers from a lack of established celebrity power, while the sequel lacks a cohesive storyline predictably, the first filmed Infernal Affairs, remains the best representation of the trilogy.

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Contributors
Catherine E. Bailey is currently a Ph.D. student in English at
Western Michigan University. Her research interests include gender studies, adolescent literature, magical realism, and the intersections between literature and social justice. Her poetry, prose poetry, and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Superstition Review, Pomona Valley Review, Poetry South, Line Zero, Scythe, Lingerpost, Rose Red Review, Broad!: A Gentleladys Magazine, Femspec, and other publications. A play she wrote, based on interviews with over 50 women from four countries, was produced at the University of Rochesters 13th Annual Festival of One-Acts in 2011. She has also published articles and reviews in Colloquy: Text Theory Critique, Yes! Magazine, Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, Worldchanging, and Three Percent.

Jim Davis is a graduate of Knox College and an MFA candidate

at Northwestern University. Jim lives, writes, and paints in Chicago, where he reads for TriQuarterly and edits the North Chicago Review. His work has appeared in Seneca Review, Blue Mesa Review, Adroit Journal, Whitefish Review, The Caf Review, and Contemporary American Voices, in addition to winning the Line Zero Poetry Contest, Eye on Life Poetry Prize, multiple Editor's Choice awards, and a recent nomination for the Best of the Net Anthology. www.jimdavispoetry.com

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Carly Steele is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing

at Florida International University. She currently resides in Hollywood, Florida. carlyelizabethsteele@gmail.com

Paul Bernsteins work has appeared in journals such as Main

Street Rag, Drown in My Own Fears, Poesia, The New Renaissance, and elsewhere. A longtime NYC resident, he now lives in Ann Arbor, MI, where he works as a freelance medical editor and frequently appears at open mics and other poetry events. paulbnewyork@aol.com

Brendan Sullivan is a lifelong beach bum who has turned from

acting to poetry, as he finds it a more remarkable muse. He enjoys surfing, sailing, and diving. His work has been published at Wordsmiths, The Missing Slate, Every Writers Resource, Gutter Eloquence, A Sharp Piece of Awesome, After Tournier, Bareback Magazine, Emerge, and Bare Hands.

Winnie Khaw is a creative writing MFA candidate at California

College of the Arts. Her work is featured in Empty Mirror Books, Passages North, Palooka Journal, The Philadelphia Review, Eclectica, The Daily Satire, etc. She was waitlisted for the 2013 Lit Camp conference in San Francisco, and was Chapman Universitys nominee for the Association of Writers award in fiction in 2011. But mostly, she spends her free time being silly.

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